Things to worry about today number one: Drug Traces Common In Drinking Water

[koganbot]

According to AP story Drug Traces Common In Tap Water (title a bit misleading, since the drug traces may well be common in filtered and bottled water too; and by drugs they also mean hormones and the like, pharmaceuticals in general)

Summary:

--Trace amounts of drugs, hormones, etc. are common in drinking water sources, including headwaters and aquifers (get into the environment from humans and livestock excreting the pharmaceuticals into sewage and from leakage in manufacturing)
--The long-term effects of these traces of pharmaceuticals on humans and other living things is not well understood, but studies of wildlife are disturbing (e.g., male fish developing female characteristics), and medications are of special concern because most are designed to work on the human body - this doesn't mean that they're necessarily dangerous in these trace amounts but rather that we don't know
--There are no standards or regulations regarding their presence
--There isn't extensive screening yet to see how much is in the water
--There are no current sewage systems designed to remove pharmaceuticals
--The current technologies that could remove the pharmaceuticals may be prohibitively inefficient and expensive

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I hear you re: hormones - even normal fluctuations hit me up good and proper, artificial doses are actually unbearable for me. However I think other London-related health risks (eg air pollution, stress, terrorism) outweigh the hormone thing.

Hmmm. I don't doubt that dudes are more infertile these days because of hormones in drinking water, but if you think about it, if everyone's on the pill anyway then clearly they *don't* want to get preggers? I guess it's a bit much asking everyone who is trying to conceive to start chugging away on Evian though. I dunno.

[koganbot]

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